Let's Connect For A Cause: The good old Radio: The new educational change agent?

During my MBA induction, we were made to form a team and come up with an idea of a product or service and present it. We came up with the idea of creating our own FM radio channel.

Sadly, our idea flopped, as we had no concrete factual data to support our idea and no plan on profits and ROI (return of investment).

It was our first step in the world of management and our first lesson was to be creative.

Today I look back at this incidence and realize how important that one simple lesson is, for one to survival in today’s world. Every generation is facing the same problem; food clothing, shelter, and poverty. And every generation is the same, only a select few wish to be creative and find a solutions, while the majority fall by the wayside and simply follow the creative ones.

Today, CACR has taken the initiative to come up with ideas to solve the problem of “access to education”. My monthly articles are focused on finding these ideas. One such idea came to my mind when I was watching the show “50 Gadgets that changed the world”.

Can you guess the top two gadgets?

They were mobile phone and radio. Radio has been an influential gadget since the early 20^th century. It had solved the problem of communications then, but has it now?

So, I started pondering as to its usefulness in the current scenario?

I was sitting in my father’s office and listening to music when the thought struck me of creating an FM School channel.

While aspersions may be cast on the originality of my idea, how many of us have seen this idea actually come to fruition?

The next thing after television that has huge penetration in rural India is radio. Why not use it as a virtual school?

If mobile phones (the Idea Internet Network) can be used a learning tool, can’t we use radios too? The FM channel can teach the same subjects that are taught in school; history, geography, science, and languages.

Remote villages do not have access to school or teachers. Children drop out of school because it is difficult for them to travel long distances. It is also not possible to set up school in every village and there is also the issue of availability of teachers.

If we can access banks from home, communicate with people overseas, isn’t it time for Digital India to get access to basic education at home?

Go into villages, and you will see people traveling with a transistor wherever they go. They have a radio in their farms so they can listen to music while working. Can’t they learn maths or language while working?

Your notebook is your field, and your stick is your pen.

What I have mentioned here is just a seed of an idea. I truly hope we can get together, brainstorm and help it blossom into something great.